The Daily Telegraph says the BBC is ‘outdated’ and wants it to ‘demonstrate its continuing relevance’. Excuse me while I reach for my revolver. The BBC is a State broadcaster. State broadcasting was ‘relevant’ in the same way Communism was.
Let’s spell it out, for those who don’t know the history. The BBC was set up to limit free speech.
In June 1920, Marconi, with backing from the Daily Mail, made the first (private) radio broadcast in Britain. The British State, run by Britain’s ruling class, was horrified. They feared the masses, and they feared free mass communication. In America there had been an explosion of private radio stations, broadcasting whatever they liked. Within months, radio broadcasting in Britain had been banned.
Scores of private companies were itching to get into radio broadcasting and repeatedly petitioned the government. In response, the British State announced in 1922 that it would control all radio broadcasting. When TV came along, the same thing happened. Companies like Marconi, the Daily Mail, HMV, EMI and others were dying to plunge in. But TV was declared to be a State monopoly.
We’re now well into the 21st Century and, astonishingly, that State monopoly still holds. The BBC’s resources are vast, crowding out any realistic competition. According to Roger Mosey (former Head of BBC Television News, and Editor of the Today Programme), the BBC enjoys a 70 per cent share of ‘news consumption’ on British TV and Radio.
The BBC shares the same dire failings as every other State producer. Those of us who have worked there know the staggeringly vast waste, the meaningless jobs, the corruption (look at the salaries).
But the waste is the least of it. To repeat, the BBC controls 70 per cent of news output on British TV and radio. The people who run the BBC (like others who work for large State organisations) tend to look favourably on high public spending and increased State regulation.
They cannot but have a huge influence on public debate in Britain, subtly colouring our views on everything from the EU and global warming, to ‘austerity’ and debt, the NHS, welfare reform and the size of the public sector.
The BBC reflects perfectly the worldview of the class that really runs Britain. Not the capitalists ‚Äì if it were the capitalists do you think State spending would account for almost half of GDP? No, the BBC is the propaganda wing of the New Class, a class which is all the more powerful because it slips under the radar (that’s because there isn’t enough good old-fashioned Marxist class analysis among Libertarians).
The name ‘New Class’ may be unfamiliar to you, but close your eyes and you can see them: the cultured, educated but underpaid (according to them), the snob socialist paternalists, the market-hating tax-consuming regulators. If you want understand them better, read John Carey’s Pride and Prejudice: Intellectuals and the Masses. They are confident, self-righteous, parasitic and poisonous. And in Britain, the BBC is their most powerful weapon.
Make no mistake. The BBC has played a key role in the transformation of Britain from a thriving, prosperous, free country, into a flagging State-dominated manufacturing has-been. Don’t be fooled by the glittery frocks on Strictly Come Dancing. The BBC is a sinister organisation. It must not be reformed. It must be abolished.
